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Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Katie Couric was caught red-handed deceptively editing an interview with members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League in her new anti-gun documentary Under The Gun. Pavlich wroteabout this appalling exercise in liberal media bias. Couric questioned the group by asking “if there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons, or terrorists, from walking into a licensed gun dealer and purchasing a gun?” It was followed by an eight-second pause, which was aimed to make gun owners look like idiots.

The director of the film, Stephanie Soechtig, responded last week by saying:

There are a wide range of views expressed in the film. My intention was to provide a pause for the viewer to have a moment to consider this important question before presenting the facts on Americans’ opinions on background checks. I never intended to make anyone look bad and I apologize if anyone felt that way.”

Couric’s statement soon followed: I support Stephanie’s statement and am very proud of the film.”

Yet, even Erik Wemple of The Washington Post noted that the pause only gave “viewers a moment to lower their estimation of gun owners,” and labeled the moment to consider portion of the statement as a “weaselly excuse.” Even National Public Radio tore into the deceptive editing, saying that it would never pass musterwith the new organization's protocols regarding interviews.

Now, Couric says she “takes responsibility” for the exchange with the VCDL, and provided the transcript of the audio that was left on the cutting room floor.

As Executive Producer of “Under the Gun,” a documentary film that explores the epidemic of gun violence, I take responsibility for a decision that misrepresented an exchange I had with members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL). My question to the VCDL regarding the ability of convicted felons and those on the terror watch list to legally obtain a gun, was followed by an extended pause, making the participants appear to be speechless.

When I screened an early version of the film with the director, Stephanie Soechtig, I questioned her and the editor about the pause and was told that a "beat" was added for, as she described it, “dramatic effect," to give the audience a moment to consider the question. When VCDL members recently pointed out that they had in fact immediately answered this question, I went back and reviewed it and agree that those eight seconds do not accurately represent their response.

VCDL members have a right for their answers to be shared and so we have posted a transcript of their responses here. I regret that those eight seconds were misleading and that I did not raise my initial concerns more vigorously.

I hope we can continue to have an important conversation about reducing gun deaths in America, a goal I believe we can all agree on.

Even with this act of contrition, Epix, which broadcasted the documentary, appears to have yanked it from circulation. Bob Owens wroteover at our sister site Bearing Arms that if you search for the documentary on Epix’s website it reads, “This movie is not currently playing on Epix.”

Reagan Democrats are with Trump today, driven to this extremity by Bush Republicans. These kinder and gentler, compassionate "conservatives" have not only refused to secure our border against millions of illegals, but conspired with Democrats to pass the so-called Civil Rights Act of 1991, which overturned a series of Supreme Court cases that had refused to recognize claims of racial discrimination based on nothing more than statistics. In passing this bill, Congress created the pernicious doctrine of "disparate impact," and for 25 years, non-discriminatory employment practices have been under legal attack if they result in a work force too white. A Republican president, named Bush, signed this concept into law. This treachery was never forgotten by working-class whites.

For a time, Bush 1 stood firm, threatening a veto. But in an incident reported only by National Review, Alaskan RINO Ted Stevens stormed into the White House, demanding that the veto threat be lifted. Bush caved, and the white working class was betrayed. When Clinton had his "Sister Souljah" moment the next year, they saw in him someone who at least had a minimal amount of courage when confronted by black racism, and the Republicans lost the presidency.

Stevens had failed in Alaska at enshrining racial discrimination in the Alaska Constitution in 1987, and Alaska has been a solid red state since. But he succeeded at the national level, and the seed of the Trump vote was planted. The rights of one group – whites – would have to be sacrificed to appeal to another group – blacks. The repudiation of the Reagan legacy party would continue with Bush 2, ruining the Republican brand by overseas adventurism, expansion of the welfare state, and a domestic spending binge.

Bush Republicans, along with Trump, are big-government conservatives, meaning they're not conservatives at all. They're the Fortune 500 Republicans, happy to use the powers of the federal Leviathan to feather their own nests. At least 80% of congressional Republicans are beholden to big business and are unwilling to stand with the working men and women of this country. They won't fight for much, although their corporate masters do oppose higher taxes on themselves. That's about all they're not willing to bend on.

The failure of the Cruz candidacy and the continuation of Boehnerism (a form of Bushism) in the person of Paul Ryan mean that the only politically practicable way of getting the federal government under control is from the ground up. Congress, regardless of which party is in the majority, is controlled by powerful special interests who profit from the system as it is. The Supreme Court, in upholding Obamacare, has demonstrated that it will not stand in the way of the expansion of federal power.

So we're down to Article V, our last resort, the emergency brake crafted by the Framers for precisely the situation we find ourselves in. Republican state legislators are the last bastion of Reagan conservatives, and they are slowly beginning to understand the role the Framers gave them in our federalist system. Texas governor Greg Abbott is prepared to help provide the leadership of an Article V movement with his Texas Plan, nine proposed constitutional amendments that, together, would restore limited and constitutional government. One of them, the Balanced Budget Amendment, has 28 of the required 34 state resolutions. If six more states are added, the first Amendment Convention in American history will convene to draft the language of a BBA.

Seven states whose legislatures are under complete Republican control have not passed the Article V BBA Resolution: Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, Wisconsin, Virginia, and South Carolina. Unless 2016 is a Democratic landslide, all should remain Republican in 2017, with the possible addition of Kentucky.

Because no Amendment Convention has been held in our history, some state legislators hesitate to support Article V, fearful of a runaway convention. The John Birch Society and, under Phyllis Schlafly, the Eagle Forum have led the resistance to Article V. In order to allay these concerns, the Assembly of State Legislatures was formed and will meet in Philadelphia on June 16 to adopt a set of proposed rules for the convention to operate under. Most important is the principle of one state, one vote, one amendment. Every state has an equal vote, and only the subject matter contained in the call for the convention can be considered.

Regardless of the outcome of the presidential election, Congress, under either party, will not make the reforms we so urgently need. These reforms will only come from the states, and the people, using the Constitution's last resort: Article V.

Fritz Pettyjohn was chairman of Reagan for President, Alaska 1979-80, and blogs daily at ReaganProject.com.

College is a time for intellectual curiosity, or at least it used to be. As liberals have increasingly dominated the academic profession, college has been transformed from a thinking space into a safe space and its culture from politically open into politically correct. While on the surface it may seem that liberal professors have accomplished their goal of indoctrinating college students, the work of the professors has had an unintended consequence: young conservatives now know how to fight back against political suppression, and they are in a position to succeed.

In case after case, colleges have instituted a culture that has removed political discourse from campus altogether. From claiming that the use of the word "American" is "problematic" to banning the use of the word "mankind," colleges have created a culture that forces students to live in a bubble of liberalism, whether students like it or not. George Orwell was not far off in his assessment of the future if these professors were the thought police he was talking about.

Efforts by the left to remove political discourse from college campuses have been met with strong resistance from the right. Conservative speakers such as Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder have been traveling to college campuses across the country to share their message with young people, to the ire of campus liberals and progressives.

The left's response has been to repeatedly protest these speakers and prevent them from speaking at all. This has not stopped the speakers from continuing to fight back, and Shapiro has even helped file a lawsuit against the notorious California State University, Los Angeles for preventing him from speaking in February.

These conservative speakers are traveling to college campuses in particular to explain to young people the idiocy of P.C. culture and safe spaces. The conservative message about opening up college campuses to free speech and the free expression of ideas becomes much stronger in the face of campuses removing conservatives' right to speak altogether. The left will be hard pressed to win a debate over freedom of speech by denying conservatives that very right. All it does is reinforce the right's point on the matter as well as giving conservatives the moral high ground.

Students are witnessing colleges attempting to take away their freedoms, and conservative voices are growing on campus in response. Membership in college conservative clubs, like Young Americans for Liberty, is increasing to combat liberalism. What this rise in membership has done is provide conservatives with strength in numbers so they can share their principles on campus without being so easily shut down. When these clubs are juxtaposed with liberal protesters such as these, who protested Milo Yiannopoulos's event at Rutgers, they can credibly claim that they are the voice of reason on college campuses.

Most interesting is how this process can affect the future of conservatism and of politics in general. While conservatives are constantly forced to defend their views on campus in the face of a heated opposition, liberals are given a free pass and are able to be barricaded in an ideological bubble. What this can set up in the future are political debates for which liberals are nowhere near prepared. We are already witnessing that when the political weapon of choice for young liberals is to shut down conservative events instead of preferring to have an honest discussion about the issues.

By having to constantly defend their beliefs, a large segment of young people have become deeply rooted in ideological conservatism. It takes guts to defend oneself among immense scrutiny from the left, so those doing so must truly believe in what they are saying. These young people want their candidates to be just as vigorous in defense of conservatism as the students have been themselves on campus.

Through all of their efforts in trying to make college campuses as politically one-sided as possible, leftists have only hindered their own and have made the right stronger in defense of conservative principles. The left has given the right good reason to rally the clans in a call for freedom, and that is a cry that will only grow louder as campuses continue down this path of political correctness and liberalism.

In the future, liberals will look back on their attempt to overtake college campuses as the day they lost the political debate for good to the true, intellectual conservative.

Trevor Louis is the publisher of The Daily Whig, a conservative blog featuring young writers. He attends Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C.

At least Zahra Billoo, head of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Council on Islamic America Relations (CAIR) is being honest. Ryan Mauro of the Clarion Project reports:

A top Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) official took time out of her Memorial Day weekend to stand by her opposition to honoring fallen U.S. soldiers on the holiday and specifically took aim at Muslim-Americans who serve in the U.S. military.

Donald Trump might have written The Art of the Deal, but the title he should peruse today is Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. His more vocal supporters, and by that I mean those who act out on the internet precisely as Donald does on the stump, should pick up a copy as well. Both the candidate and his hard-core supporters have missed the idea that it is the job of the winner to unite a party.

Oddly the Trumpists defend their offensive and insulting demeanor by saying that neither John McCain nor Mitt Romney reached out to voters like them. Uh, well maybe…and how did that work out again? And Trump has not learned this lesson to date.

Consider: while many in the Republican Party rally to his side -– albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm -- Trump continues to make it almost impossible for large swaths of the party's voters to join the Trump train. He is maybe the sorest winner in American political history. Sore losers are one thing, but sore winners are an entirely different sub-species.

The Donald sees an open microphone and he just can't help himself -- insulting people he desperately needs to defeat Hillary Clinton (or whomever.) At a California rally, where the leftists against Trump where showing their true hate filled colors by rioting and shouting F-bombs outside, Trump was showing his legitimately unsavory colors inside by once again going to the "lyin Ted" and "Mitt's a loser" memes.

"Poor Mitt Romney" he said of his predecessor as presidential nominee, "He begged for my endorsement! And now all he does is badmouth me … You know, once a choker, always a choker … And now he walks like a penguin onto the stage -- like a penguin!"

Really Donald? There was a tremendous unifying opportunity going on outside the doors, but you had to go there? That is, shall we say, sub strategic. And penguin?

But he was not done.

"Lyin' Ted…holds that Bible high, puts it down and then he lies" cackled Trump. "Lyin' Ted. Well, I'm going to retire that from Ted -- I'm not going to call Ted that anymore."

And yet, he just did. Not only that, he made sure he revved up the venom meter with the totally gratuitous Bible held up high reference. He never got around to saying exactly what Lyin' Ted lied about either, but the salient point is that he is a sore, sore winner; and moreover, he has inspired millions in this regard.

Now, chances are that the most visible Trump supporters, defined above simply as one who behaves on social media as Donald himself behaves on the stump and on Twitter, will probably arrogantly and ignorantly insist that their hero does not need Lyin' Ted or choker Mitt to beat the Democrats. Such unawareness is unseemly and demonstrates stupefying shallowness.

Trump may not need the literal single votes of Ted Cruz or Mitt Romney in November, but he damned sure needs the votes of many who voted for each man. For all of Trump's success so far, Mitt (whom I did not support in the 2012 primary) has received some 61 million votes for President. Trump to date has tallied 11.5 million. Before you get all indignant, the narrow context here is not an apples to apples comparison, it's merely a way to hammer the point that Trump absolutely needs those 50 million people to have a chance to win.

Yes I realize that many assume Donald will swamp Mitt's total in November, and he might, but as of this moment that is merely a theory. The fact that those who voted for Trump were far more enthusiastic matters only so much.

And then there are the Cruz supporters, who make up a good part of the limited government heart of the GOP base. For all of Trump's successes, Cruz still got more than twice the votes in Texas than Trump got in all of massively populated New York State. Cruz's home is absolutely necessary for Republicans -- while New York will not matter a bit and will go Democrat, period.

For the record, I was one of those Cruz supporters, and had made the Hobson's choice that since I vote in purple North Carolina, I will likely take an airsick bag into the booth and pull the lever for the liberal New York son over the liberal New York witch. So call me #NauseousTrump. And pardon my language, but thanks to Trump, that's all part of the acceptable political lexicon today. At least I didn't use an f-bomb.

My decision to pull the Trump lever is ironic given that Trump clearly doesn't want my vote. After all, I was one of those stupid rubes who supported Lyin Ted and cheered him for "holding the Bible up high" and then lying. That would make me Lyin Edmund, I suppose, one among millions of lyin' voters. In so many words, Trump is the one telling the nearly 8 million of us to go pound sand. (You can insert f-bomb here).

And in the spirit of unity, I won't even mention that many of those 8 million were fighting Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton and the Gang of Eight while Trump was funding them. I'm going to retire that. I'm not going to mention that Trump was kissing up to them while we were fighting them. Nope. It's time to stop saying that. It's retired. I won't mention it ever again, except of course to say that I'm not going to say it.

Moreover, Trump clearly doesn't want the voters for choker Mitt either. He paints Mitt as a loser who came on bended knee to Trump Tower to beg for his endorsement. That's not how it happened, nor would it be relevant if it had. The fact is, even though Mitt was way too harsh on illegal Mexican invaders for Trump's tastes, Trump endorsed Mitt after it became a fait accompli that Mitt was going to win.

I well remember the awkward press conference in Las Vegas where that took place. It meant absolutely nothing in the scope of the primary season then, and certainly means nothing now. Yet Trump can't let it go. If I were disposed to being catty, I would mention that Mitt gave away his entire inheritance while Trump used his as a running head start. But I won't. Neither will I bring up the fact that the bankruptcy protection scoreboard reads Trump 4 Mitt 0. That would be untoward. I'm retiring that too.

No, if I were to Drudge all that up -– I mean dredge all that up -– it would make me look like I'm #NeverTrump. And I'm not. However, it's clear Trump and many of his supporters want voters like me to be just that. He insults many of the people he needs behind every microphone, and his followers take to the socials to do the same. If the #NeverTrump camp hangs around long enough to impact the election, Trump and his supporters -- those who act out just like their hero does -- will have no one to blame but themselves. And the consequences, at least with regard to the Supreme Court, will be devastating and perhaps history altering.

So a word to Donald and his followers: right now there are more of us than there are of you. We don't want our rear ends smooched, but we are justified in conditioning our support on your stopping the vile and childish insults.

Edmund Wright is a contributor to American Thinker, Breitbart, Newsmax TV and Talk Radio Network, and author of an Amazon Elections Best-Seller.

Speculation is raging in Washington about who might end up as Donald Trump's vice presidential pick.

Trump had said he's considering a number of candidates, but has stressed that he wants an experienced politician to help him navigate Washington.

While the presumptive nominee is likely weeks away from a decision, here are the 10 names insiders see as the most sought-after VP picks.

1. Ohio Gov. John Kasich

Kasich is a no-brainer - a candidate who seems laboratory-designed to be the perfect VP pick.

National profile? Tick.

Ability to be president immediately should something happen to Trump? Tick.

Helps in a swing state? Massive tick. In Ohio, which typically swings with the presidency, Kasich won with a 30-point margin and can boast about turning an $8 billion shortfall into a $2 billion surplus.

As Ohio's popular sitting governor, Kasich would be the best-placed person in the country to deliver the crucial bellwether state to Trump.

Kasich also has the policy depth and national security experience that Trump lacks.

He was chairman of the Budget Committee in the late 1990s, when he worked with then president Bill Clinton to balance the federal budget. He also served 18 years on the House Armed Services Committee.

The bad news:Kasich has said publicly in the strongest terms that he doesn't want to be anyone's VP. But he seems to be softening somewhat, now saying only that he's "not inclined" to be Trump's running mate, whereas previously he said there was "zero chance."

There may also be an irreconcilable personality clash between Kasich and Trump - two men whom associates say both fancy themselves as brilliant leaders. A GOP source who's known Kasich for years says he can't imagine the Ohio governor taking marching orders from anybody, least of all Trump.

Finally, Kasich is a white male - a demographic group that Trump already has in the bag.

2. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker

Corker added fuel to already burning VP rumors when he paid a visit to Trump Tower in Manhattan last week. The Tennessee lawmaker told reporters they shouldn't read anything into the meeting and that the two men mostly discussed foreign policy, but sources close to and inside the Trump campaign readily mention Corker's name when they speculate about the VP shortlist.

Corker offers Trump some obvious benefits. He's got insider cred - GOP Senators have been praising his virtues as a potential running mate - and he'd help Trump build trust on the Hill. Trump has said he wants a Washington insider to help him navigate Congress and, as a senior lawmaker, Corker would serve that purpose.

Still more useful would be Corker's foreign policy experience. He's chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Many Republican elites are terrified about handing over the most powerful military in the world to a national security neophyte, and a Trump-Corker ticket would go a long way toward comforting them.

The bad news:As a white-haired white male from Tennessee who is close to anonymous outside of Washington, Corker offers limited political value to Trump.

3. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)

Trump values loyalty, and he's had no better congressional surrogate than Blackburn. Flick on a Sunday political TV show and you'll likely see Blackburn defending Trump against whatever the Democrat panelist is throwing at him.

Blackburn is telegenic and has avoided the Washington habit of speaking like a politician. She sounds, as Trump does, like a regular person. Plus, like Carly Fiorina, she can be a brutal critic of Hillary Clinton and having a woman on the ticket will help defend Trump against the Clinton campaign's charges that he and the Republican Party are anti-woman.

Blackburn also has experience in health policy and could help Trump flesh out his vague promise to replace Obamacare with something "much better." It doesn't hurt that she's expressed interest in the VP job.

The bad news:Blackburn has no foreign policy experience, which would create a GOP ticket virtually absent of national security credentials. She also represents a safe Republican state.

4. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson

Carson would be an unconventional pick, and would obviously not satisfy Trump's stated desire to choose a Washington insider who could help him cut deals on the Hill.

But Carson has a lot to offer Trump politically. He's generally well-liked across the country and among those who love him he reaches idol status. Carson has traveled America for the past few years selling his popular books and building extraordinarily deep connections with evangelical communities. He could potentially help Trump turn out two important demographics: African-Americans and the Christian Right.

Another asset Carson brings is his small-dollar fundraising network, which was the closest thing in scale on the Republican side to the fundraising machine that Bernie Sanders has built on the Left.

The bad news:Carson has already proven to be a problematic surrogate. He said in one interview that Trump has "major defects" and in another he said there were "probably" better people than Trump who could be president. Carson was also exposed during the campaign for his lack of national security experience.

5. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin

A senior source on Trump's campaign told The Hill that Trump tends to view governors more favorably than senators, because while both are politicians at least the governor has executive experience.

Fallin potentially solves two problems. She's a governor, which would bolster Trump's executive seriousness. And she could also address Trump's much-written-about "woman problem." Only about 30 percent of American women hold Trump in favorable light, and he knows he needs to change that fast.

The bad news:Fallin has very little national name ID and wouldn't bring a swing state into play. She represents Oklahoma, where Republican nominee Mitt Romney won in a landslide in 2012.

6. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie

Chris Christie is almost certainly on the Trump campaign's VP list but it's unlikely he'll get the nod.

It's not that Christie is without virtues. He's a governor and former prosecutor who has national name recognition and rare political gifts. If Trump didn't run in 2016, Christie would've been the unshackled straight-talker in the GOP field. Even with Trump, Christie still managed to assert his presence and showed his ability to destroy an opponent when he took out Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) at a debate before the New Hampshire primary. He could be an effective attack dog against Hillary Clinton.

Christie also brings fundraising muscle to the Trump campaign. As chairman of the Republican Governors Association, Christie barnstormed around the country and helped raise more than $100 million.

The bad news:Christie is deeply unpopular in his home state of New Jersey and has been widely lampooned since endorsing Trump. Even Trump has appeared to enjoying emasculating Christie - making jokes about his weight and bossing him around at events. Christie also belongs to a demographic group that Trump already has to himself: middle-aged white males.

7. Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst

Joni Ernst would be a surprise selection, but for all the right reasons.

She could help Trump in at least four areas: She's more than 20 years younger than Trump and is viewed within the GOP as a politician capable of making inroads with female voters and young Americans. She's a skilled media performer and Trump could feel at ease turning her loose around the country to represent his campaign.

Also, in Ernst's short time in Washington she's formed strong bonds with Republican leadership and is understood to be liked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. She'd be a rare VP that helps Trump connect with Capitol Hill without totally alienating the conservative activists who love him for being an outsider.

The bad news:Ernst is less than two years into her first term in the U.S. Senate so may be leery about ditching her Iowa constituents for higher stations so soon after being elected.

8. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich

Selecting Gingrich as VP would be a tacit acknowledgement by Trump that he's given up on reaching out to women and minorities.

A Trump-Gingrich ticket would hurl Trump down a narrow path to victory: Increasing the percentage of white voters who vote Republican at the top of the ticket.

This 'double down on whites' strategy would be the polar opposite of what the Republican National Committee imagined when it wrote its autopsy after the 2012 election. But really, what's to lose? Trump has already set fire to the RNC's playbook, and Gingrich would bring many other assets to Trump's campaign.

First off, Trump and Gingrich genuinely like each other. They've known each other a long time and talk regularly by phone. Trump is understood to seek out Gingrich's political advice.

Second, Gingrich is perhaps the only other conservative politician in America who rivals Trump for his knack of manipulating free media coverage.

And third, the former speaker remains well-connected on Capitol Hill and can help Trump navigate the hallways of Washington.

The bad news:Gingrich is a magnet for controversy and unconventional ideas. Remember the moon colony? A Trump-Gingrich ticket would test the tolerance of a fed-up electorate.

9. Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer

A sharp-tongued woman who has executive experience. What's not to like about that?

Brewer was early to endorse Trump - she did so in late February - and since then she's been a feisty advocate for the presumptive GOP nominee on national television. Brewer also seems to enjoy bashing Hillary Clinton for playing identity politics with the "woman's card." She'll be a useful weapon for Trump regardless of whether he puts her on the ticket.

The bad news:She's not well-known nationally and could be seen as past her political expiry date, having left office in 2015.

10. Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions

Ted Cruz badly wanted Jeff Sessions' endorsement in the Republican presidential primaries. But Sessions went all in on Trump, expressing especially enthusiastic support for Trump's hard-line positions on immigration and trade.

Since then, Sessions has done much more for Trump than promoting and defending him on TV. Sessions and his staff have introduced Trump and his people to key lawmakers in Washington. He's done a lot to increase comfort levels with Trump on the Hill.

Sessions and his team, such as chief of staff Rick Dearborn, also play key roles in Trump's growing Washington policy shop, which is overseen by Paul Manafort. Sessions has been leading Trump's national security working group.

The bad news:Sessions as VP would offer Trump limited advantages politically. His uncompromising stance on illegal immigration is much more appealing to the Republican base than it is to a general election audience. And as a white man representing a deep red state, Sessions appears to have little capacity for outreach to women, Democrat-leaning independents and minorities.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky. smiles while explaining that he actually believes in nothing and therefore Donald Trump is the ideal candidate for him. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite;caption by streiff)

Today, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gives a wide ranging interview on Hugh Hewitt’s show. According to advance transcript received by POLITICO, McConnell has this to say:

“We’ve had nominees before who were not deeply into Republican politics and philosophy,” the Kentucky Republican told radio host Hugh Hewitt, referring then to Dwight Eisenhower. “But Trump is not going to change the institution, he’s not going to change the basic philosophy of the party. And I’m comfortable voting for him because on the big things that I think have the greatest impact on the future of the country. At the top of the list is Supreme Court. I think he’ll be just fine.”

I don’t even know what to do with that. While there is truth to the statement that Ike was not a partisan candidate prior to 1952, to insinuate that he’s like Trump is ridiculous. For starters, Eisenhower never actively supported Democrat candidates and he didn’t vocally support Democrat positions. Eisenhower actually had a very strong understanding of the US government, it’s roles and functions, and some very distinct ideas about how the United States should address its problems. None of those statements can be truthfully said to apply to Trump.

In a sad way, though, McConnell is actually right in another part of his statement. Donald Trump will not change the GOP or what it stands for. What Trump has done is reveal what the GOP stands for. And for that we should show some small amount of gratitude.

Trump has demonstrated what we have suspected for years.The GOP stands for nothing more than perpetuating the political power of a relatively small oligarchy that believes in nothing more than it should be in power. So McConnell is right. Trump’s nomination may represent a defeat for individual freedom and free speech. He might finish the work Obama began on our alliances and oversee their destruction. American influence will recede and the vacuum left will be filled by all manner of truly evil people. We may be dragged into an era of unremitting attacks on US physical presence abroad. But the GOP philosophy will not be damaged by any of that because there is no domestic or international policy that is really critical to the GOP’s identity.

Donald Trump has revealed the true nature of the GOP in a way that Failure Theater and the election of Thad Cochran never could. Trump shows that the GOP is not about policy or principle or sound governance. It is about, as my colleague Dan McLaughlin puts it, “rooting for laundry;” supporting someone because they happen to temporarily wear the same team jersey.

North Korea appears headed for a fifth nuclear test. The U.S. joined South Korea and Japan in warning Pyongyang against violating its international obligations. Just as the three governments have done for the last quarter century.

Alas, they cannot stop the North from moving forward with its nuclear program, at least at reasonable cost. Washington should learn the value of saying nothing

The U.S. stands apart from the rest of the world. American officials circle the globe lecturing other nations. Yet other governments rarely heed Washington. It doesn’t matter whether they are friends or foes. Other states act in their, not America’s, interest.

Perhaps the most famous recent “red line” set by Washington was against Syria’s apparent use of chemical weapons in the ongoing civil war. However, the president’s off-hand comment promising action never made sense, since America would have gained nothing by going to war.

Syria’s death toll has reached 400,000, the vast majority from bombs and bullets. Use of chemical weapons only marginally adds to the horror. And weakening the Assad regime effectively strengthens the Islamic State.

Anyway, since 2011 the Obama administration has said that Syrian President Bashir al-Assad must go. But the administration has done little to force him out. So much for U.S. credibility.

Washington suffers the same problem when addressing its nominal friends and allies. For instance, Washington long demanded that its allies spend and do more. But most states sheltering behind America continue to do what they always did, live off of the U.S. Washington responded by doing what it always did, whine while underwriting its nominal allies. America’s complaints had no impact on its friends’ behavior.

Now North Korea is in the news again. For a quarter century U.S. presidents—Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama—insisted that the North cannot, must not, dare not, develop nuclear weapons. The North proceeded to accumulate nuclear materials, test nuclear weapons, miniaturize warheads, and expand missile development. Which led Washington to … insist, yet again, that Pyongyang comply with its demands.

American officials should stop making demands which they are unwilling to enforce. An occasional bluff might pay dividends, but U.S. officials will retain credibility only if they exercise restraint and reserve threats for issues of serious interest to America.

As I wrote in Conservative Review: “The world always will be unmanageable and messy, well beyond America’s control. After all, the U.S. was created by a few angry, determined colonists who took on the world’s greatest power. It should not surprise their descendants that governments and peoples elsewhere are willing to similarly defy the world’s current greatest power.”

In most cases, the U.S. should say nothing and work behind the scenes to achieve its goals. Rather than highlight its impotence, Washington should demonstrate humility and prudence, virtues too often missing in U.S. foreign policy.

Monday, May 30, 2016

A few Memorial Days ago, I recall myself comfy on the sofa, overstuffed with cookout delights, watching a documentary on TV about conscientious objectors. The program portrayed these guys as moral superiors. I thought, "You guys are able to bloviate about the evils of war and pursue careers as American artists, college professors, and so on because other brave young men went to war to fight for you, defending your freedom."

Another Memorial Day TV program featured WWII soldier and character actor Charles Durning. Durning earned three Purple Hearts. He was awarded the Bronze and Silver Stars for valor and the World War II Victory Medal. The French consul presented Durning with the National Order of the Legion of Honor.

At the 2008 National Memorial Day Concert, Durning stood at the podium and wept for his fallen brothers. Wow! Do they make character-driven, courageous men like that anymore?

I served in the U.S. Army stationed at Ft. Bragg, N.C. from 1969 to 1971. My entire battalion received orders for Vietnam except myself and another soldier. Thus, I never experienced serving in a combat zone.

My buddy, Gerry "Boats" Milhollen, experienced combat in Vietnam. He suffered night terrors for several years and other emotional issues that cost him his marriage. Gerry said what pained him and fellow combat vets the most is that, unlike U.S. troops returning from previous wars, they never received a welcome home. Quite the opposite. Vietnam vets were spat upon and called baby-killers.

I asked Gerry to share his thoughts in a tribute I recorded a few years ago titled "Welcome Home Brother."

I was in my late teens when my cousin Jackie's husband Norman Byrd was drafted and sent to Vietnam.

Norman never returned home. It was all pretty surreal. I found his name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.

My daughter recently retired from the U.S. Navy. She went in directly after high school and worked her way up to retiring as an officer. Her cousins on her mom's side lived in the mean hood of west Baltimore. Many became addicted to drugs. One of her cousins was murdered by thugs.

I remember my daughter telling me that when she came home on leave after basic training, she immediately noticed that she no longer had much in common with her friends. They were still kids, and the military had made her an adult.

My daughter said that before she retired, that it pained her to see what the Navy was becoming. The discipline which had molded and shaped her was being thrown out the window due to political correctness. She said rather than training sailors, she felt like a babysitter.

I heard a black preacher tell his congregation that he would love to see the government go through the ghetto scooping up fatherless young black men for the military. They would learn to shut up, respect authority, and receive a paycheck for a job well done. While the preacher's comments were tongue-in-cheek, I get his point and agree. Despite it being under attack by Obama, leftist social engineering, and political correctness, the U.S. military is still a pretty good place to turn youths into responsible adults.

Traveling the country on Tea Party Express, I had the pleasure of meeting Debbie Lee, the gold star mom of Marc Alan Lee, the first Navy SEAL to die in Operation Iraqi Freedom. In honor of her decorated son, Debbie founded AmericasMightyWarriors.org, which helps the families of fallen soldiers. I organized patriot music artists across America to record a song titled "Taking Back America." We selected 44 songs from the artists to be included in a project titled "Tea Are the World." All the proceeds benefit Debbie's AmericasMightyWarriors.org.

While enjoying your family cookouts, please reflect and give a nod to those whose courage and sacrifice made it all possible: the U.S. military.

We gather together today to remember – and to revere – those who gave their lives defending America. To them, and to those who stood with them and by them, we owe our freedom.

Memorial Day is a day to remember that freedom is not free. The long rows of graves here in the countryside near Anzio, so far from our homeland, like so many other graves around the world, like the wounds and scars so many have suffered, are reminders that others bore heavy burdens and paid painful prices to preserve our freedom.

Memorial Day is a day to remember death. To remember pain. To remember suffering. To remember the agony of war. To hope and pray that Plato was wrong when he said that only the dead have seen the end of war. And to remember that there are things so precious as to be worth fighting and dying for.

Memorial Day is a day to think of peace. We yearn for peace, but yearning is not enough. Peace, like freedom, has a price. The same price – courage. The courage to pay the price and bear the burden of keeping America strong enough to prevail against the evil that confronts us. There is no better way we can honor those who gave us freedom and those who fought to keep us free than to insure that our heritage of freedom shall not perish.

It is fashionable today in some narrow and often influential circles to search for excuses to ridicule those who serve in our military, to belittle their efforts to defend us against our adversaries, to portray our own country as the impediment to a better world, and to profess belief in the absurd notion that there is a moral equivalency between us who are the defenders of freedom and those who have already enslaved millions and still seek to enslave us. Fashionable – but foolish. Dangerously foolish.

There are those – some well intentioned, some not, some merely naive, some bent on appeasement – who foolishly, often arrogantly, claim a monopoly on the commitment to achieving peace. Disparaging defense, scorning the soldier, quick to criticize America, and just as quick to apologize for our adversaries, they arrogate to themselves the label "peace activists." They are wrong.

"The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace," said general Douglas MacArthur, "for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war." Think about that the next time you see some of these misguided self-proclaimed activists who cannot bear the thought of action in defense of freedom ridiculing the military. Remember that there are no finer activists for peace anywhere in the world than the men and women who serve in the military forces of the United States of America. Nor any more effective.

Memorial Day is a day to remember that we remain the land of the free only because we have been the home of the brave.

As we gaze across the long rows of graves and the hundreds of small American flags blowing gently in the breeze, we think of the land we love and the freedom we cherish. And we remember those who preserved and protected America and freedom.

If those Americans who stood guard and kept us free at Anzio and all the other battlefields throughout our history could ask a question of us, it might well be that great question that ends our national anthem: "Does that star-spangled banner still wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

Because of them, and because of those who stood with them and by them, it does. May it always.

Fred J. Eckert, a former conservative congressman from New York, twice served as a U.S. ambassador under President Ronald Reagan, who called him "a good friend and valued adviser."

This Memorial Day, American Thinker honors two soldiers for their heroism. They were quiet professionals, helping others, seemingly ordinary American warriors with an extraordinary sense of responsibility. Heroic acts of selflessness and courage arose from a dedication to the brotherhood, where they put others' lives ahead of their own.

In 1944, Master Sergeant Roddie Waring Edmonds was captured by the Nazis in France. He along with other non-commissioned officers found themselves in the Ziegenhain POW camp, Stalag IXA. When they first arrived, all were made to witness the execution of a fellow Russian POW and were told by the German commandant, Major Siegmann, that if they disobeyed orders, they would suffer the same fate.

Pastor Chris Edmonds told American Thinker, "My father and fellow American POWs suffered humiliation, were starved and beaten. One fellow POW later commented, 'It was so bad that when we got out of that camp, we never had another bad day.'"

But it appeared things would get worse for the Jewish POWs. As Sergeant Lester Tanner recounted, "We had heard stories of the death camps but knew of labor camps where Jewish POWs were sent and where the Jewish non-commissioned officers at Ziegenhain would have been sent. The reason they were not sent was due to the heroism of Master Sergeant Edmonds, the highest-ranking American non-commissioned officer who defied the Nazi command."

Siegmann ordered that only the Jewish POWs were to fall out for roll call. But Edmonds decided that all prisoners would stand in formation and issued the orders. Tanner believes that "the Army's Rules of Conduct, his personal Code and Morals, his duty to care for the men under his command and his courage and valor in the face of the enemy at the risk of his life guided the decision. Roddie could no more give up his men than to stop breathing."

His son through multiple research and interviews found out that the German commandant put a pistol to Edmonds's head to force him to single out the Jews. His response: "We are all Jews here. If you are going to shoot, you will have to shoot all of us, because we know who you are, and you'll be tried for war crimes when we win this war. And you will pay."

The commandant backed down, and the approximately two hundred Jewish POWs were saved because Master Sgt. Edmonds, at the risk of his immediate death, defied the Germans. Posthumously he was awarded "Righteous Among the Nations," the highest honor Israel confers on non-Jews who have risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust, the first time a U.S. soldier was named.

Another unforgettable account of courageous action was when Green Beret Staff Sergeant Roy Benavidez, of the U.S. Army's 240th Assault Helicopter Company, risked his life to rescue a Special Forces team trapped behind enemy lines in 1968 Cambodia. In a just released book, Legend, author Eric Blehm recounts the heroism of Benavidez.

Because the North Vietnamese were using a supposedly neutral nation, Cambodia, to enter South Vietnam, the U.S. inserted and removed by helicopter 12-man special forces A teams. All of this was strictly off the books to maintain plausible deniability. Unfortunately, the NVA had adapted and constructed hunter teams to counteract the Special Forces teams sent in. On May 2, the unit was placed into the heart of an NVA division, unbeknownst to the command center.

Both volunteering to serve and for this mission, without a second thought, Benavidez went into the firefight to bring out the wounded soldiers. Upon arrival, he jumped out and into the withering enemy fire. Despite being immediately and severely wounded, Benavidez reached the perimeter of the decimated team, provided medical care, and proceeded to organize an extraordinary defense and rescue. During the hours-long battle, he was bayoneted, shot, and hit by grenade shrapnel more than thirty times, yet he refused to abandon his efforts until every survivor was out of harm's way.

Ingrained into his thinking by his grandfather, Benavidez had the attitude "if someone needs help, you help him." Blehm told American Thinker, "He knowingly went into a place of chaos. It is obvious it is not the size of the man, but the size of his heart. The story is surreal, considering after putting the wounded on the helicopter, he went back to rescue the interpreter, while holding his own intestines. As I recount in the book, he crawled around the seriously wounded, giving tactical orders, took charge of air support, medical aid, ammunition, and boosted the wounded morale." He saved the lives of eight men and eventually recovered to live a productive life, telling his story to inspire children.

Both Benavidez and Edmonds typify the U.S. soldier who would do anything for his fellow brothers and sisters, including risking his own life. Benavidez was awarded the Medal of Honor thirteen years later, while Edmonds's son is attempting to have his dad awarded it posthumously.

This Memorial Day, Americans should remember those soldiers who have died. These two men exemplified the best and the bravest. Americans should take to heart what Benavidez said to a congressional committee: "The real heroes are the ones that gave their lives for this country, the ones that are lying disabled for life without limbs. … We didn't ask to go and fight a war for this country, and we didn't fight for luxury, money, or popularity. We went in the defense of this country, to live free and enjoy the freedom that we have right now, all of us."

The author writes for American Thinker. She has done book reviews and author interviews and has written a number of national security, political, and foreign policy articles.